September of 2011 brought a massive line-wide change to DC Comics, promoted as the “New 52.” In subsequent months, the bold relaunch of the company’s entire portfolio of properties awarded DC the top position in industry sales and market share, but reality seems to be setting in with the recent announcement of cancellations among its 52 core comic series.

“Men of War,” “Mister Terrific,” “OMAC,” “Hawk and Dove,” “Blackhawk” and “Static Shock” will all end after less than a year’s worth of issues. Some of the titles represent DC’s experiment in thematic and racial diversification in their output.

“DC’s first round of cancellations of ‘New 52’ titles was not only not surprising, but planned in advance by DC,” said Ed Katschke of Monarch Cards & Comics. “Any company debuting 52  new titles in a single month is clearly utilizing a ‘throw mud at the wall and see what sticks’ strategy of publishing and would naturally assume that not everything would succeed. The cancellations have very little bearing on my store as they are naturally the titles that are selling the least. Although, on a personal note, I am sorry to see both ‘OMAC’ and ‘Static Shock’ go the way of the dodo.”

But with the note of endings comes the company’s news of six additions to its line: “Batman Incorporated,” “Earth 2,” “World’s Finest,” “Dial H,” “G.I. Combat” and “The Ravagers.” One of the titles, “Earth 2,” brings DC’s popular multiple-universes theme back into play, while “Dial H” brings the comics debut of novelist China Miéville.

“I’m really excited about the replacement titles DC has lined up for April,” Katschke said. “I think ‘Earth 2’ and ‘World’s Finest’ will do particularly well, considering the popularity among comic fans of DC’s Golden Age characters who will be featured prominently in both titles. ‘Batman Incorporated,’ continuing writer Grant Morrison’s critically and commercially successful Batman story line, should continue its popularity as well. The other titles seem to fit the profile of some of the titles being canceled and I don’t expect for them to have quite as wide an audience, but you have to give DC credit for trying to produce alternatives to the same old style of superhero comics.”

Tags: Batman, China Miéville, DC Comics, Earth 2, Grant Morrison, Monarch Cards and Comics, Ravagers, World's Finest

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 at 12:03 pm and is filed under Comics, Star.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.